


Tumbling Larks

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 Round Two - Team Discipline [15]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-21
Updated: 2011-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:19:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paraskeve could usually tell when someone was watching her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tumbling Larks

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com

Paraskeve could usually tell when someone was watching her. Perhaps it was an old trick of the trade—spending so much time in front of crowds—or perhaps it was just her. But as she bent back over herself into a bridge and pulled up into a handstand, she could feel Niva watching her, though a book was drawn up before the young woman’s face.

            It had been a while since Paras had experienced the old sensation of a watchful audience as she went about her routine. The routine was lesser now, less strenuous, but impressive yet for those who had not seen a troupe of performing acrobats at their best. A handstand alone was not so remarkable when it was not atop two others balanced upon one person’s thighs.

            Still, she smiled as she worked, flipping backward and over herself a number of times, twirling as she did so. She was looking for her limit: the place she _had_ to stop or the wheezes would take over. Paras thought she could nearly recognise it, which would allow her to keep her hobby without fear it would harm her. She also kept the limited hope that if she knew the limit, she could work to expand it.

            But Paraskeve knew she could not leave Winding Circle, or at least would not in a way that uprooted her from this new home. This was hers to keep. With Niva nearby, ‘reading’ and actively watching, she concluded she wouldn’t want it any other way.

            An audience was an audience, two eyes or two hundred. She finished by balancing on a fence post, one of the posts near the cottage once called Discipline. When she landed her breath was spiked, but not over her threshold; she somehow knew the next activity would throw her over. She had found her limit. It was bittersweet, but with Niva sitting nearby, the smile won over.

            Niva pretended to turn a page as Paras walked nearby and sat to catch her breath.

            “Do you have any tumbler friends around here?” Niva asked, as gently as she could—which wasn’t to say very gently at all, but Paras could hear the difference.

            She shrugged one shoulder. “I suppose I always do or will be about to, since we travel—trav _elled._ ” Her eyebrow rose slowly. “Why do you ask?”

            “Well, I know you can’t travel with them any longer, but you seem very capable. I can hardly stand on my feet the way you stand on your _hands_. I would love to see you with other tumblers, someday, if only for a moment.”

            Paras smiled tenderly, for Niva was not the one to express such sentiments usually. She hardly took a care in the other novices—at least not outwardly enough that they would notice—and rarely expressed any fondness for Paras despite their friendship. She had gifted a compliment, as well, even if it was in self-depreciative humour.

            “I will keep that in mind the next time I hear whispers of a travelling troupe. We performed at temples sometimes.” Paraskeve grinned. “Some dedicates even have a sense of _humour_.”

            “Well _I_ won’t,” Niva declared, forcing her features into a frown, “and I doubt you can prove the others do.”

            “No, of course not,” Paras yielded. She laughed as Niva joined in the grass.

            “Don’t look so pleased. This is for your reading lesson.” To Niva’s false dismay, Paraskeve’s pleasure seemed only to increase. Niva’s eyebrow rose. “I didn’t expect you to enjoy punishment.”

            “What am I being punished for?”

            “For being a show-off.”

            Paras chortled. “But you were reading—surely you saw nothing?”

            Niva broke her rule about revering books for the honourable purpose of thwacking Paras with it. “You’re going to be one of those _humoured_ dedicates, aren’t you?”

            “Only when I have an audience.”

            Niva opened the book and rolled her eyes, pointing to a sentence. “Read that out loud. If it’s too hard, I’ll steal one of Isas’ children’s books.”

            Paraskeve’s eyes bulged. “You’re joking! He has those?”

            Niva crossed her arms. “Didn’t we just cover this? No humour from me—least of all its lowest form, a _joke_.”

            “And you say you don’t have a sense of humour.” Paras couldn’t hide her grin, which earned her a tap on the knee with the book.

            “I _don’t_. Now read before I make you tumble with _me_.”

            If there was an insult in there, Paraskeve didn’t hear it. She read anyway, slow and unsteady: “The gur— _girl_ —whatched—”

            “Watched.”

            “Watched the lark—oh, lark!—the girl watched the lark tomb—no, _tumble_ —throw— _through_ —the sky and…sm—smiled?  The girl watched the lark tumble through the sky and smiled!”

            Niva beamed. “Well done.”

            No audience in _Tharios_ had ever praised her so highly, that was for sure!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! (:


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